Minestrone soup

After the lamb feast for dinner on Sunday we needed a meat free day full of lovely vegetables. What better way to get a good dose of vegetables than minestrone soup? And since the weather was miserable and wet yesterday we tried to fit some Italian sunshine in a bowl.

Really, there is no prescriptive recipe – you can vary the vegetables according to what you have or to the season. For example, how about a nice summer one with fresh peas, beans, asparagus and a light non-tomato broth? Since we don’t want to go out and buy lots of different vegetables we also use frozen and tinned with the fresh.

We eat a lot of pasta and use a lot of parmesan and keep some of the rinds in the freezer to add to soup such as minestrone – it gives a really delicious, savoury note. You can also fry some chopped bacon or lardons with the onions for added flavour in a non-vegetarian version.

And we are fussy about the vegetables being finely diced – we don’t want large chunks, thank you. So hone your chopping skills and get busy. Here is our basic recipe;

makes loads!

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 large celery stalk, finely diced
• 1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
• 2-3tbsp chopped herbs of your choice (thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley) and a couple of bay leaves
• red wine
• 1.5 litres vegetable stock
• 1 small courgette, finely diced
• 100g french beans, cut into small pieces
• 100g peas
• 100g podded broad beans, skins removed
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• small tin of flageolet or similar beans
• 1 parmesan rind (optional)
• a handful of shredded greens such as cabbage (optional)
• small pasta such as coquillettes or spaghetti broken into small pieces

Heat the oil in a very roomy pan over moderate heat and when hot add the onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Add the chopped herbs and bay leaves then put a lid on and sweat gently until soft. Turn up the heat a bit and add a good splash of red wine and let it reduce until there is just a small amount left. Pour in the vegetable stock and all of the remaining ingredients (except the pasta) and season with salt and pepper – go easy on the salt if using the parmesan rind and/ or bacon. Let it simmer for 10 – 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

We find if we add pasta to the soup then it becomes too stodgy so while the soup is cooking we cook the pasta separately and put a small portion in each soup bowl then ladle on the soup. A dusting or parmesan to finish is a must for us.

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